Tag: four tet

The house-y, four-on-the-floor tracks for my November mix were chosen a while before I actually mixed and posted it, and, uh, things are a bit darker now. The title says it all, really. Show up and pour up.

This one goes out to all the self-driving cars, vacuum-cleaning robots and anything else doing stuff we humans would rather ignore so we can play Pokemon Go. PS: That Marquis Hawkes album is killing it.

Drum and bass was my first dance-music love (unless you count a flirtation with C&C Music Factory in grade school); I think it was a direct route from seeing Prodigy’s “Firestarter” video on MuchMusic to getting hold of MTV’s first Amp compilation and just playing and replaying Goldie’s “Inner City Life” over and over and over. I was all about the breaks, aside from a lingering fondness for Roni Size (firmly wiped out by paying UK import prices at the Eaton Centre HMV to get hold of the Breakbeat Era album… yurgh). I lapped up anything Goldie-related, discovered Alex Reece, Remarc, Plug, Wax Doctor, goggled a bit at Aphex Twin, Alec Empire and Squarepusher’s cuckoo-bananas contributions to the genre, and even made my poor mother turn the car radio to CIUT to catch a ragga jungle show that aired at 6am while we were on our way to school. (Sorry, mom.)

Tech-step pretty much killed the sound off for me, at which point I was deep into IDM anyway – anyone want to buy some Team Doyobi vinyl, not even slightly used, hit me on my beeper. Don’t all call at once. Anyways, the resurgence of Metalheadz, in the form of a flurry of new releases, is plenty of reason to make a sequel to the original Massive mix I did a while back. But all this grime and footwork business goes rather well with it, I must say…

You better stop, children what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
No but like, seriously, what the fuck was that? It was hella loud, yo
– Buffalo Springfield, “For What It’s Worth”

There have been a lot of records this year in the burgeoning BANG! BOOM! CRASH! subgenre, where the samples and/or drums are so loud they feel like they’re jumping out of your speaker and hitting you in the face, even at low volume. But the best of them remain undeniably musical, and even catchy. Evian Christ and Bok Bok are tops in this department, through different approaches; the American upstart is relentlessly melodic even with his noisiest bits (a skill he shares with Skrillex, of all people) while the Brit turns even the rawest repetitions into R&B, whether it’s with 80s quiet storm synths or the very Aaliyah-like vocal stylings of Kelela.

Looking down the list, melody is the thing, however subtle. It’s there in Martyn and Four Tet’s twinkling kalimba samples, Toronto’s Jex Opolis’ Zither EP (especially “On The Cliffs” with its stabs of vocal “aaaahs” and gently burbling drums), DMX Krew’s oddly compelling lounge-pop and even H-SIK’s amped-up breakbeat science. I used to think a hummable tune was optional, even quaint, but maybe the years of minimal tech – and the waning of the prog house sound in favour of who knows what in EDM-land – have made it more palatable, if not outright necessary.

You’ve got your grime-oriented and just plain weird producers in there, of course – Mumdance coming with a couple of collaborations (with Logos and Pinch respectively) that make it sound like there’s a vacuum cleaner and/or a rogue mobile phone behind the boards, as well as Phon.o, Lakker and L-Vis 1990 all delivering sides that are more not-there than there. But the tunes predominate, however simple — from Vitalic’s uncharacteristically pop-oriented take on Paul Kalkbrenner’s “Altes Kamuffel” to the chugging grooves from Melchior Productions Ltd., Todd Terje and KHLHI (a.k.a. Four Tet).

There are some chuuuuunes in this one. The TARAVAL cut, for starters; Hercules and Love Affair obviously; Tiga & Audion sounding deliciously creepy; and that Vitalic remix is enough to make me completely forget about his not-all-that-great last album. Check the cool wax, as the Beasties would say.

Welcome to the second post of album roundup week, where I tackle more releases that I want to spill ink about. Beats Etc = electronic music for home listening, really, but that won’t fit in a headline.